Wong Jing Releases New Stills for “Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber” Film
The 1993 film adaption of The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber <倚天屠龍記>, Kung Fu Cult Master <倚天屠龍記之魔教教主), starring Jet Li (李連杰), Sharla Cheung (張敏), and Chingmy Yau (邱淑貞) is considered to be a classic now due to its cast and stunning action choreography. Although director Wong Jing (王晶) deliberately left an open ending to pave the way for a two-part movie, its initial poor box office put a stop to that idea.
It has been 27 years since, and Wong Jing finally announced a new film adaptation of the classic Louis Cha (金庸) wuxia novel. Recently, he released stills of the new cast in their costumes.
Headlining the film as the main character is Raymond Lam (林峯), who will portray Zhang Wuji. Starring opposite him is Janice Man (文詠珊) in the role of Zhao Min and Sabrina Qiu (邱意濃) as Zhou Zhiruo. Louis Koo (古天樂) also plays a part in the film and will star as Raymond’s father, Zhang Cuishan, and Rebecca Zhu (朱晨麗) as his wife, Yan So So. Donnie Yen (甄子丹), is also part of the star-studded cast, starring as Zhang Sanfeng.
Although the audience is often wary about new adaptations of classics, the star-studded cast itself may draw in enough viewers to make it a box office success this time around.
Source: Hket
This article is written by Huynh for JayneStars.com.
Cmon Rebecca!
Rebecca lolllllll
i’m kinda curious how bad this will be so I might watch it lol. HSDS is my favorite Jin Yong novel as well and it’ll be nice to watch a wuxia in Cantonese again.
@karina
I disagree. The idea of the swords is great but the characters are rather annoying and unlikable. Nearly all the other Jin Yong stories are far and away better…
How is this “star studded”? A handful of tv actors? Raymond is 40 playing a role meant to be 20?
@seriously I know right? OMG…and WTH is the stylist? He already looks old enough but what kind of getup is that? It must a bad day for him or something as he does not look good on any of the pics. hahaha…
@seriously total miscast. He’s old enough to play Yang Xiao.
@seriously Agreed, Raymond is way too old for this role
@seriously He no longer has the boyish charm required for this role.
@seriously My first reaction too, he is far too old for this role.
@seriously
According to this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMRphhJycZc
this sequel will be set 20 years after the first movie. So, ZWJ will be in his late 30s. Raymond would be the right age for the role.
@seriously I am more spooked by the fact that they are going to make Rebecca Zhu play his mother!! Heck, I think she would be better being cast as Yang Buhui or Xiaozhao.
@rika
Playing Zhang Wuji’s mother is fine because she only appeared in the story when young. I don’t see a problem with that.
@jimmyszeto The problem is her counterpart is Louis Koo. Zhang Cuishan was only in his early 20s in the beginning of the HSDS. The current Louis Koo isn’t exactly the Yang Guo from RoCH anymore.
@rika
There is no way you should find someone older than Rebecca to portray Yin Susu. Just because Louis Koo plays Zhang Cuishan dies not mean they have to find an old actress his age to match with him…
I started watching last years TV version of Heavenly Sword and was amazed at how big the cast was. This movie version…er… Why bother lol
The stills don’t look good at all. Raymond is too old for this role and the costumes/hair/makeup are horrendous.
skip, wong jing productions are just trash
Raymond should be playing Zhang Wuji’s uncle….
This Raymond Zhang Wuji casting choice is as bad a Lawrence Ng for TVB
@jimmyszeto Lawrence was not a bad ZWJ. At least he could act. Just a tad bit old and it was obvious. Raymond is even worse LOL
@jimmyszeto tony leung ’86 version of cheung mo kee is still the best. his charm is unparalleled. the second best is ’94 version with steve ma. and the worst cast ever of cheung mo kee is the 2009 version with deng chao as lead. he looks like a kelefeh.
@kolo In the ’94 version, I was so much more mesmerized by Sun Xing as Yang Xiao that I almost skipped all the scenes with main characters. Haha.
@jimmyszeto Ha! Lawrence Ng’s version is my favourite!
@snoopy Lawrence Ng’s is also my favorite! Gigi did an amazing job portraying Zhao Min
Raymond lam getting lot of opportunities recently. Still popular after for so many years. Good for him
But anyone noticed he looks weird now and doesn’t age well.
Thought rumor said Rebecca is to play ZZR when she won the BSA or was it BA at TVB?
Regardless, what a disaster or a cast! Omg… smdh. This is definitely a V8 moment! Though TVB 2000ish cast were full of oldies, they acted well for the most part. The movie with Jet Li was my favorite adaptation bc of all the right people. Jet made ZWJ charismatic; most importantly he can actually fight! Raymond? OMG, what… Also Wong Jing’s innuendos were bearable then. Now, they’re painfully and unnecessary in your face.
HSDS was my least favorite series, mainly ZWJ is an annoyingly dumb char. He never did revenge his parents death. It’s also pity that the sword and sabre left in the back burner, in a way, after the introduction. People were fighting and stealing them, but that was it…
An added irony is Donnie looks the youngest between him, Raymond and Louis, yet he plays a character who’s the oldest. At least he has the substance to pull off a character who is a well respected skillful shi-fu. Thought he wasn’t filming kung-fu movie anymore? Or is wuxia don’t count?
@jjwong Kung fu and wuxia movies have something in common: martial arts and strong character bonding. The big difference is the setting, timeline and style of action. The former is realistic-based and set in contemporary times while wuxia movies are the total opposite (supernatural, set in ancient times).
@dook Hi ya! Yea, I know the fundamental differences btwn kung fu and wuxia. What I meant was since Donnie Yen claimed he doesn’t want to make anymore kung-fu movies like Ip Man, so am surprised he’s in this HSDS since both are martial arts type of action. Then again, not surprised if he only said that to promote or make some buzz for Ip Man.
@jjwong Donnie stated that he’s done playing real-life martial arts masters in movies because there’s nothing new to show due to its’ restricted genre traits. But he’s going to continue making action movies in general. So what he meant is he’s making all types of action movies, just not martial arts biopics like Ip Man.
@dook Ah okay. So he’s done with contemporary martial arts action, but still doing fantasy genre action. That sorta kinda makes sense but not completely. Action is action right? Wuxia style action is still drawn from a “realism” style of fighting. They’ll still be choreograph and fighting sequences. Anyways, I can see why he doesn’t want to do Ip Man anymore though. There are like 4 of them! Lol. I wouldn’t be too surprise of there’s a 5th within next 5 yrs.
@jjwong No, he actually wants to make more contemporary action movies, as in action movies set in present times opposed to martial arts biopic set in old times. I don’t think wuxia or similar movies set in ancient/fantasy settings will be a problem for him. His issue is just playing roles based on real martial arts masters.
Raymond Lam’s styling is really bad here! I watched that video about this version of ZWJ being in his 30s because the plot happens 10+ years after the 1993 version. Wong Jing is known for changing up Jin Yong’s stories. You can basically say that he uses the characters and backstory as a template and then creates his own version of the novel. It’s to a point where it’s quite disrespectful to Jin Yong, but I guess you can also say that he’s making it interesting for the audience since everyone already knows what happens in HSDS.
Anyway, I am still going to watch this for the sake of entertainment and familiar actors. I am happy that the majority of the actors are from HK rather than mainland this time. As for the actresses, I personally like Janice Man but I don’t know how I feel about her playing ZM. She does not look like a Mongolian princess, but she portrayed Wang Yuyan in a new version of 天龍八部 and she looked gorgeous there. I thought that they were gonna cast Rebecca Zhu as ZZR, so it’s kind of funny how she ended up being YSS. I heard that Dilireba is going to play XZ which is actually a good cast based on her looks.
Lastly, I wanna say that Alex Fong is IMO not handsome enough to be YX. The YX in the 2019 mainland version is really good looking lol.
@1piscesish
Are you serious? Alex Fong would be the perfect cast. He’s the coolest actor in HK by a country mile…
@jimmyszeto I didn’t say he was not cool or a bad actor. He just doesn’t fit my expectation of the character of YX because he’s supposed to be very good looking and have that 不羈 look. Appearance could be very subjective.
Raymond Lam broke Lawrence Ng record as the oldest actor portraying Zhang Wu Ji. I still think they should have find someone younger, and the styling they gave Raymond here also ages him a lot.